Free Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey Page B

Sallah was told once the shuttle’s hold had been emptied. “Or some people won’t have beds tonight.”
    “That’s efficiency for you,” Sallah remarked to Barr. She waved to the Hanrahans as she closed the hatch to prepare for the return flight. “Soon there won’t be anyone above and precious little left of the ships but the hulls.”
    “I know,” Barr replied. “I half expect to find our bunks already gone.”
    The two began their take-off check and Sallah grinned as she made her notations. She had the glide down to perfection, which meant that she was saving nearly twenty liters every journey. The wind was veering to stern, and she warned Barr to speed up her checklist.
    “Want to take advantage of that tail wind. Saves fuel.”
    “Good God, Sal, you’re as bad as Fussy Fusi.” But Barr completed her list with a flourish. “What I want to know is why are we busting ass saving fuel? We can’t go anyplace useful with what we’d be saving. And once the ships are gutted, there isn’t any use for space shuttles, now is there?”
    Sallah gave her a searching stare and then chuckled drolly. “A very good point, my friend. A very good point. I think,” she added after a moment’s thought, “I’ll check the tanks while Fussy’s dropping.”
    But when she had done that, she was not that much wiser. If they were saving so much fuel, then the level in the tanks should have been higher. Barr, who was enjoying a flirtation with one of the resource engineers, forgot her idle observation. But Sallah did not. During one of Kenjo’s drops, she did a bit of checking in the mainframe’s banks.
    Fuel consumption was at acceptable levels in both of
Yoko’s
remaining tanks. Sallah computed in her average fuel consumption per trip, plus an estimate of Kenjo’s, and came up with a total that should have left them with an extra two thousand liters of available fuel. She knocked off a percentage, based on consumption during her heavier trips, when drift and wind factors had required a higher expenditure of fuel. Once again she came up with a deficit figure, slightly lower than before but still higher than the amount available.
    What good would it do anyone to hoard fuel? Avril? But Avril and Kenjo were not at all friendly. In fact, Avril had made snide remarks about Kenjo on several occasions, unacceptable ethnic-based slander.
    “Of course, if you wanted to put someone off the track . . .” Sallah murmured to herself.
    Checking the distance to the nearest system, which had been interdicted a century before by the EEC team, and the distance to the nearest habitable system, and computing in the cruising range and speed of the captain’s gig, Sallah came up with the answer that the
Mariposa
could, even with the most careful management, make it only to the uninhabitable system. But what good would that do anyone? Disgusted by the waste of the afternoon, Sallah went in search of Barr. They had the evening run to make, and that meant that they would get to sleep planetside.

 
    T O S ORKA’S UTTER delight, school on Pern concentrated on adapting the students to their new home. Everyone was given safety instruction about common tools, and those over fourteen were taught how to operate some of the less dangerous equipment. They were shown specimens of the plants to be avoided and lectured on the botany so far catalogued: the varieties of fruit, leafy vegetables, and tubers that were innocuous and could be eaten in moderation. One of the jobs for the young colonists, they were told, would be to gather any edible plants they found to supplement the transported foodstuffs. They were also shown slides of native insectoids and herpetoids. Finally those under twelve gathered in the main classroom, while the older ones assembled outside to be assigned work with adult team leaders.
    “During this settling-in period,” Rudi Shwartz, the official headmaster, told the older children, “you will have a chance to work with a